No planned NATO surge in Afghanistan

In his meeting with NATO partners in Brussels, Trump did not call for a surge of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Trump did scold allies for not spending their 2% of the nations' budgets on defense and, as a result, did not enunciate support for article 5, which states that the US would come to the aid of any NATO ally attacked. Both NATO allies and Trump stayed quiet on Russia, and only reached agreement on disapproval for Russian action in Ukraine. This likely means that Trump still does not support the ousting of Bashar Al-Assad, though other members of his Administration wish it were so.

They did however reach consensus on NATO putting its resources into the fight against the Islamic State, which suggests Trump's priority is still the utter destruction of ISIS over and above defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Trump's Afghanistan policy is taking longer and longer to get finalized, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying it would likely take a couple more weeks. This is good news, as a fleshed-out Afghanistan policy is more likely to bring the war to a necessary conclusion.

However, dangerous parallels are emerging between the Afghan War and the Vietnam War. Unless Trump does something to bring the war to its conclusion, the Afghan War may be lost as shamefully as the Vietnam War was.